Analytically, a shift to a different style and disposition towards what’s involved in media work is separable from changed conditions of employment and the conditions of production for content. And that’s a distinction we should all be fighting for!

It’s a distinction Fairfax, in their campaign to keep the digital arm free from pesky union interference, seem keen to blur.

They’re helped in that by bloggers like Sam Brett, who scabbed during the strike.

Re – yours and my comment – no, I hadn’t read the thread at the time I wrote the post. I’ve now noted your clarifications. I do think the language you used in the orginal post was objectively a bit hostile, regardless of your intentions. As a sociologist, I don’t just look at intention but also at the way positions in a debate speak people, as well as the other way around! So it’s not meant to be a personalised comment.

I do think that there’s a bit too much dichotomising in all this, and I don’t think that there needs to be the degree of polarisation that there appears to be.

However, while as I said in the post I’m somewhat dumbfounded that a lot of journos are only now realising that changed conditions of work are a reality and not just something to write about as a “social issue” or on the biz pages, I don’t think that there’s any panacea for people in a sort of entrepreneurial working life. It can work – for a small minority. You only have to look at the difference between MEAA rates and the actual pay for freelancers, and the way Fairfax recently tried to basically prevent its freelancers from working for anyone else, or the pathetic remuneration on offer when you read the Pro Blogger job board to see that. The “new economy” represents a significant shift in power as between capital and labour.

Analytically, a shift to a different style and disposition towards what’s involved in media work is separable from changed conditions of employment and the conditions of production for content. And that’s a distinction we should all be fighting for!

(1) Agreed. As I said here and in the session, there’s a difference between reportage and analysis that is often missed in all this – and the latter is often more significant a skill and more porous a practice.

(2) Hmmm. Yes and no. I’d like to see some empirical studies on costs and cost shifting, rather than top level assumptions. Comments moderators are cheaper than sub-editors, for instance, who are in any case often now outsourced or contracted – as are most of the weekend sections in a lot of the Australian papers.

(3) Agreed – though I’d shift the emphasis a bit from anti-competitive behaviour – in part to cost of entry, but also to editorial approach. Proliferating papers isn’t the answer, but see Margaret Simons’ book on “public journalism” initiatives by some US papers which have been a success in some instances.

(4) Yes and no again. While I’d agree that I’m not a journo (hence the bit in the post and my scepticism about the too easy equation of blogging and “citizen journalism”) see also the bit in the post about the different attitude towards “sources” and indeed the reflexivity of the position of the reporter.

I doubt that’s stoushworthy though! But thanks for the input!

I’d love to hear the explanation of your point in the comments that:
“entrepreneurial web 2.0 writing” boosterism coincides neatly with a management anti-union downsizing agenda, and that is blatant in Clune’s post”. Huh? Did you read all the comments I’ve made in the post as well?

Joanne, on point 4 that you make, you’re forgetting that journalism as we know it is just on of its incarnations. It has and will always continue to be an evolving art.

I know it’s hard to come away from these days feeling like we’ve been saying the same things for years, but I think these conversations are important and for me personally, an opportunity to refocus on what I’m doing and why.

Its going the way of being less and less focused on the big issues from a critical holistic perspective to being focused on what ‘me’ as an individual reader might enjoy and how some current affair will affect ‘me’ and my personal life: Me with my busy life, job, and, quite frankly, lack of interest in the nuts and bolts and holistic implications of an issue.

Wider social critical analysis is hopefully not dissapearing – by finding its way over to bloggs, and if this is true it could represent a significant break away of intellectuals from the ‘confines’ of having to please the masses at the same time as doing their thing.

Joanne, thank you. THANK you!
You sound like you’ve actually taken the trouble to read a blog- unlike many commentators!

1. Journalism really has nothing to do with blogging and never did. They are entirely different media, one being about reporting, the other being about reflection and debate, so it’s like comparing apples and oranges. The very idea of blogging being the death of journalism is, quite frankly, absurd.
2. The so-called ‘death’ of journalism is an economic debate. Reilly may have been wrong to brand Jean Burgess as an antagonist, but he’s right that the production costs of journalism and potential revenue generation from journalism have shifted dramatically. Costs may have reduced, but the appetite for immediate and detailed reporting to news items has actually increased the staffing costs for journalism. Further, the rise in the use of blogs by traditional media sites has produced an entirely new range of staff costs in moderation and editing. And any business owner will tell you that when staff costs rise dramatically, reduced production costs do not even go close to offsetting increased staff costs.
3. Rupert Murdoch isn’t evil. However, the activities of News Corp on a global scale to eliminate competition are at best, monopolistic and anti-competitive. But if you create a private media sector with privileged access to public assets (ie: radio frequency spectrum) you risk developing a market where only those companies with access to licences for media production having the capacity to compete in that market. This goes for print media too, as even though there is no public asset being used to distribute content, there is a licensing system for media production and there are distribution exclusivities in place.
4. Journalism isn’t just about interactivity. Actually one of the things that’s annoying me at the moment is the notion of editing and debate being confused with journalism. If you mean ‘community facilitation’ then call it ‘community facilitation’ or ‘editing’ or ‘moderation’. You’re not a journalist, you’re an editor/blogger, and that’s not a bad thing, it’s just different. Where journalism is interactive it should be so for the improvement of information dissemination, error correcting, and information updates. It shouldn’t be about arguing the point. That’s community engagement and blogging, and while it may well be a close relation to journalism, it’s not, technically speaking, reporting.

Anyway – hope this is provocative and that a tirade of journalists and blogger advocates respond to my fairly firmly stated ideas. I look forward to the biffo.